"Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

that you're having faint-hearted thoughts of death. You're not only unable
to speak to me, but it is even hard for you to look at me. And I am now your
unwilling torturer, which upsets me. You can't even think about anything and
only dream that your dog should come, apparently the one being you are
attached to. But your suffering will soon be over, your headache will go
away.'
The secretary goggled his eyes at the prisoner and stopped writing in
mid-word.
Pilate raised his tormented eyes to the prisoner and saw that the sun
already stood quite high over the hippodrome, that a ray had penetrated the
colonnade and was stealing towards Yeshua's worn sandals, and that the man
was trying to step out of the sun's way.
Here the procurator rose from his chair, clutched his head with his
hands, and his yellowish, shaven face expressed dread. But he instantly
suppressed it with his will and lowered himself into his chair again.
The prisoner meanwhile continued his speech, but the secretary was no
longer writing it down, and only stretched his neck like a goose, trying not
to let drop a single word.
'Well, there, it's all over,' the arrested man said, glancing
benevolently at Pilate, 'and I'm extremely glad of it. I'd advise you,
Hegemon, to leave the palace for a while and go for a stroll somewhere in
the vicinity - say, in the gardens on the Mount of Olives.[16] A
storm will come . . .' the prisoner turned, narrowing his eyes at the
sun,'... later on, towards evening. A stroll would do you much good, and I
would be glad to accompany you. Certain new thoughts have occurred to me,
which I think you might find interesting, and I'd willingly share them with
you, the more so as you give the impression of being a very intelligent
man.'
The secretary turned deathly pale and dropped the scroll on the floor.
'The trouble is,' the bound man went on, not stopped by anyone, 'that
you are too closed off and have definitively lost faith in people. You must
agree, one can't place all one's affection in a dog. Your life is
impoverished, Hegemon.' And here the speaker allowed himself to smile.
The secretary now thought of only one thing, whether to believe his
ears or not. He had to believe. Then he tried to imagine precisely what
whimsical form the wrath of the hot-tempered procurator would take at this
unheard-of impudence from the prisoner. And this the secretary was unable to
imagine, though he knew the procurator well.
Then came the cracked, hoarse voice of the procurator, who said in
Latin:
'Unbind his hands.'
One of the convoy legionaries rapped with his spear, handed it to
another, went over and took the ropes off the prisoner. The secretary picked
up his scroll, having decided to record nothing for now, and to be surprised
at nothing.
'Admit,' Pilate asked softly in Greek, 'that you are a great
physician?'
'No, Procurator, I am not a physician,' the prisoner replied,
delightedly rubbing a crimped and swollen purple wrist.
Scowling deeply, Pilate bored the prisoner with his eyes, and these